Send Hunger Packing is a program through the Care and Share Food Bank that sends backpacks full of food home with families on the weekends. Bricker Elementary School is able to participate in the Send Hunger Packing program with the help of community partners like CenturyLink.

A very good book for photographers learning more about Food Photography. It teaches some tricks on how to achieve certain objectives, like avoiding unwanted reflections or steaming up food. It also covers lighting techniques, sources, reflectors, and deflectors.

Scoping visits to examine the subjects on the location of potential clients, is probably the most important task I do before going through any assignment. You'll be able to assess the subject, discover challenges, and find solutions, before the actual photo shoot.

The above is just an example of a scoping shot, it shows the need for:

Lower temperature backing to avoid scarring.

Avoiding cheese on the crust.

The cheese to go at the bottom, with toppings on the top.

Required styling in the distribution of toppings.

And don't limit your scoping to the products.. Look around the environment for challenges, and either fix them, or work around them.. Best of luck :)

The family & I spent a week in Dubai earlier in August, we had a nice vacation and sampled the different entertainment options, Dubai had to offer. To me, photography and food are my two passions & I had lots of fun :)

During our visit to The Mall of Emirates, I was shocked to see a construction sign for a new restaurant

I've heard so much about IHOP and how wonderful their breakfast menu was, but never tried it. I had no idea when will the construction be over, or when will it officially be open.

On August 7th, we noticed it was open and decided to give it a try. The reception was friendly and were escorted to a booth for the six of us. Two minutes later, our attending waitress came, introduced her self, and handed menus. The menu had a wide range of choices, pancakes, omelets, steaks, sandwiches, .. etc. HOLD ON, first things first, coffee.. I asked to have their bottomless pot of coffee.

... and it was good. Now, I'm looking forward to my CINN-A-STACK® pancakes. If they didn't mess-up the coffee, they can't mess-up the pancakes :)

The buttermilk stack of pancakes was properly done, with some secret cinnamon mixture/paste between the layers, and rich icing on top. The taste was good and satisfying, the portions were generous (you can only finish them if you're hungry). I only hope the would take better care of the presentation, and try to bring it closer to the photo in their menu.. I mean, come on...

Later, I asked the waitress if I could buy a mug, so she called the head waitress, who told me NO.. So, I asked her if I could steal it, and she said NO.. So, I asked her if somebody from the kitchen can accidentally drop it in a bag for me, and she said NO.

So, I walked over the the duty manager and asked if I could buy/steal a mug, he sincerely smiled and asked me to have a seat back at my table, as he took care of it.

The one-week Eid Holiday is over and today is our first day back to work.. This means going through a stack of emails & the daily routine. It also means, time to launch the business plan of fo2oz, wish me luck :)

In 2007, I slowed down my photography business considerably, due to several factors. However now, I feel that most of these factors have been resolved & I can restart the business with more focus on food photography.

There are challenges in everything we do, and the first step in overcoming these challenges is to recognize them. The first challenge I recognized was food styling, but the more you understand the challenge, the easier it becomes to overcome. If you're starting in food photography, start by understanding the culinary science of your subject, then see what element you can adjust to withstand the changes in time & heat.

A test video to see how effective a video portfolio is.. In this test, I only used landscape oriented photos; this is to leverage the 16:9 aspect ratio.. Portrait oriented photos will appear with unattractive blank margins on the left & right sides.

I appreciate your kind comments..

Known bugs: a flickering noise that occasionally occur, it happened during rendering for unknown reasons.

Music is: "Mourning John", in the soundtrack of the movie "The Italian Job".

Food photography was one of the most intimidating type of photography I've ever tried. So, I made it a personal challenge to overcome that intimidation, and the quest began. I thought hard in finding the reason, but the only cause I could reach was: Food Styling.

My photography business is almost stopped, and with that a great portion of the business budget. I needed to learn more about food styling & started searching for courses, but the only ones I could find had culinary prerequisites, which I don't have. Next, I searched for food stylists around Riyadh and was only able to find good ones working at hotels. Not to mention, they were too expensive to hire without a gig to cover their cost.

My only available option was books, and I selected a few from amazon.

My wife was of great help, and we started having fun in the process.. She cooks & I photograph.. We liked it so much that we started an Arabic cooking blog, and we're slowly gaining the experience